Carl Setzer

Currently, my job search is focused on agencies. What's amusing to me is how antithetical to all the resume prevailing wisdom agency resumes need to be. You don't want to be TOO focused. Quite to the contrary, they should be broad. That resume gets sent around for various positions, often without any prompting from you. A sufficiently broad focused resume gives their recruiter the ability to send your resume out to a variety of firms. Just my thoughts...I don't intend to bill myself as a resume expert!

There are times that I hate this whole job-searching thing. All the customizing resumes, tweaking searches, poking around random websites, trying to gauge what recruiters are seeking, finding ways to bring my resume to the top of the swarm...yeah, fun. Of course, one of the most fun parts of all this is explaining what kind of career I've had. What a long, strange trip THAT's been. That path has been, as Gary Erickson (founder of Clif Bars) would put it, has been upon a white lined road. While journeying in Europe, he found a map that differentiated the main, heavily traveled roads with red and the smaller, lesser frequented ones with white. In his book , he uses that analogy to explain the path his business has journeyed, as well as his viewpoint on decisions. My winding career, though, makes it hard at times to describe what I am, at least in terms of my career. Perhaps it's easier to talk about my foci right now. I am seeing my deepest gifts as administrative, if not...

Last week, I started working again after 6 months off. It's been a strange trip, let me tell you. First, starting work after a 6 month break was rather surreal. The first few days were quite exhausting. However, I rebounded quickly. My brain is starting to get back into the swing of organizing teams (the heart of my career to this point). Now, I'm not back into the full-time, permanent work-force. I'm a contractor/temp, working for a large technology company in the greater Seattle area. Fortunately, I'm coming from Starbucks, so I have experience working for a large, Fortune 200 company. I now how to function in controlled chaos. Though I've explored a good many career options, directions in which to wander off to, I keep coming back to administrative and office management. Finally, I feel that this really is my calling. I'm good at this, and can jump into pretty much any setting and succeed. This next stage shall be, well, unique in the course of my caree...

Having passed the 6 month point of my journey through unemployment, it seems to be natural to reflect. I don't know why, but it seems natural. Natural as in without pesticides, hormones, or added sugar. Anyway, my time has been laden with gorgeous weather. My tan has a deeper coloring, the best results I've had in decades. Really, though, there's more. With my respects to Jerry Garcia, this has been a strange trip. First, and best, has been the deeening connection with my family and friends. Several of us who were let go the same day have forged a great bond. The challenge now is, as we start to return to the workforce, to keep that link. It will change, as things always do. Yet, I'm certain that we've forged something strong. This has been a difficult time, more for some than others, and sharing those journeys always results in something strong. I am most grateful for time with my family. This cannot be replicated and will be cherished decades from now. This time, ...

I'm exploring Microsoft's latest effort in the search category, Bing . As there has been a number of articles, and some ads touting its features, I felt it was time to give it a test-drive. M$ has learned from Google. The interface is nice and clean, very much like Google's. Currently, they have a lovely background of Normandy. This is filled with hyperlinks to D-Day topics, but done in a rather unobtrusive way. Anyway, the main thing to check is search. For my first effort, I decided to try and find a BusinessWeek article that I'd just read and wanted to seed to Newsvine . My search terms were the title of the article ("Microsoft's Search Savior") with "BusinessWeek". In Bing , sadly, the article didn't appear in the first page of results. Google had the article as it's first link. Trying a vanity search, I find my LinkedIn profile first, followed by my main website, Setzers.org second. Not too bad. I do like the list on the left s...

My friend Bill forwarded me a great piece from siliconvalley.com discussing the ways that layoffs have been impacting people's family lives. My layoff has affected me far more deeply than I would've expected. Fortunately, on the whole, I'd say the experience has been positive. This interim gives me much more time with my son, which I take with relish. The tension that I have felt with my wife has been externally focused. The feeling is as the two of us facing out, backs together. For such, I'm quite grateful. The opposite would be an aggravation beyond pale. I have focused on growth and understanding during this time. Watching the news, it's easy to see the greater state of the economy. It's easy for me to not take the quiet after the hundreds of resumes personally. I quite expect that this economic mess will take years to fully recover from. Many years ago I decided my life would not be about wealth or power, but about service and impact. And about living...

I had a lovely interview this afternoon and feel good about how it went. However, this is balanced with the knowledge that many others have also been interviewed. Though it is for a position that I would be excited to get, I'm not all angsty. I'm just not too worried about the whole unemployed thing right now. However, that's due to luck, and some skill (I guess). Savings will hold out for a bit yet, and my wife works...and it's quite unlikely she'll loose her job (she teaches junior high special ed...I shudder at the thought). Our worst case scenario is a radical lifestyle shift. Perhaps losing one of the cars (and it's payment), and dropping such things as cable (the horror!). And I'm not so hell-bent on working. Work, for me, is more about contributing and making an impact. That, truly, is a luxury. Reminds me of my grandfather. He was "retired" (acted upon him, not of his choice) when I was about 12. His life was wrapped up in his job. He was i...

I've developed several plans since my layoff back in February. My first, main, plan A, whatever, has been to pursue a BA in Applied Computing at the University of Washington's Bothell campus . Part of this was to have the State pay for this (I've been taking classes part-time in the evenings pursuing this). However, it doesn't look like that's going to work. Mainly, degree completion is NOT on of the Commissioner Approved Training options. Thus, though I still await the official answer, I'm pursuing alternative tracks.   Now, I'm trying to position myself as a communicator with solid "social media" skills. I've seen several positions for such. Sadly, no bites in this sector yet. We'll see, though. This is where I put the lion's share of my resume focus.   Lastly, I have my fall-back of administrative assistant work, which I've done plenty of. My resume is strong for this, and I have several opportunities lurking nearby via ...

I spent a good chunk of my day, yesterday, on a skills inventory for a temp firm. Now, some would hate this. I, however, actually enjoy this. These give me some great insights into the job market's software needs and expectations. Also, as someone who tries hard to be cutting, if not bleeding edge, I always tend to be well ahead of the curve. There were only a few areas I didn't know strongly, particularly with the Office suite. Of course, I hold myself to a high standard here. Not knowing how to code a macro in Word 2007 bugs me. I know how to get to that screen, but it's different enough from 2003 (where I haven't coded a macro in years) that I was puzzled how to actually code the thing.

As much as I love the Mac OS, and Macs in general, I'm finding myself using Vista much more. Simply, it works better with everything that I need to do right now. Several employment applications are IE only. There have been several skills tests that have only worked on Windows as well. Though it makes me a little sad, at least I'm not one of the Windows bashers who has to eat his words. *Ahem*

The past few weeks has been one of serious self-evaluation. Though I liked my last position, I suffered from a lingering sense of "blah". I've been trying to figure out what I've wanted to do in order to grow. Getting laid off provides a crucial moment to dive into this self-assessment. Besides the time (which hasn't been as present as I hoped) to do so, there also is the element of necessity. Knowing that I need to find another job, and wanting to ensure that whatever I land next is something with more satisfaction, has compelled me to be deliberate. So, after all this, I'm thinking of diving into the "communications" space. Particularly, I hope to blend my love of writing with tech and blogs. We'll see what comes of it. I have seen some companies searching for folks with this background. With all this, I've had several tools recommended to me. Particularly, LinkedIn , Jobster and Indeed . I'm just starting my dive into these sites, ...